Bug 2492290 (CVE-2026-53003)

Summary: CVE-2026-53003 kernel: pppoe: drop PFC frames
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) driver. A remote attacker or a peer with a misconfigured implementation could send specially crafted Protocol Field Compression (PFC) frames. This could lead to a one-byte shift in the PPP payload, causing a four-byte misalignment of the network header. On certain architectures, this misalignment may trigger unaligned access exceptions, potentially leading to a denial of service or system instability.
 Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-06-24 18:03:39 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

pppoe: drop PFC frames

RFC 2516 Section 7 states that Protocol Field Compression (PFC) is NOT
RECOMMENDED for PPPoE. In practice, pppd does not support negotiating
PFC for PPPoE sessions, and the current PPPoE driver assumes an
uncompressed (2-byte) protocol field. However, the generic PPP layer
function ppp_input() is not aware of the negotiation result, and still
accepts PFC frames.

If a peer with a broken implementation or an attacker sends a frame with
a compressed (1-byte) protocol field, the subsequent PPP payload is
shifted by one byte. This causes the network header to be 4-byte
misaligned, which may trigger unaligned access exceptions on some
architectures.

To reduce the attack surface, drop PPPoE PFC frames. Introduce
ppp_skb_is_compressed_proto() helper function to be used in both
ppp_generic.c and pppoe.c to avoid open-coding.
Comment 1 Keith Grant 2026-06-25 17:34:11 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026062447-CVE-2026-53003-ce3c@gregkh/T